I think we should agree that yum _is_ broken here and needs to be fixed.
and no including a optional plugin won't help, the default behavior is
broken ( I would even say its a security bug)

Does anyone else have an odd feeling of deja-vu?

Yes, and a strong one at that.

This and "but it shouldn't abort when unresolvable dependencies are
present" threads (among various other non-yum related ones) keep recurring
every few months.

Somebody with too much time on their hands, analysis of these threads
might be interesting subject: do these things recur N months before/after
release, only during certain months when it's cold as hell in certain
parts of the world or what :)